After you've picked out the architecture (or are working with what you've been stuck with) and after you've chosen the major furnishings and the paint colors, there's the other thing that can make a room sing: skillful styling. This year, make each room pop like never before with these potent styling tricks for stand-out spaces!

1. Highlight Height

Add visual height to your spaces — all of them. From color on the ceiling to hanging plants to stacks of books on shelves to wall collages that inch ever higher, adding height is one of the most powerful ways to spread the style throughout your entire room and make your space feel sophisticated and fresh. Spotted on Transitoinicial.

2. Add Texture

We're tactile beings. From birth we seek out things to touch so we understand the world around better. A home without a variety of textures for our hands and eyes to explore is a boring and sad space. Mix up different materials in the same small room. Put textures on the wall. Put textures on top of textures. Make them rough textures, and smooth textures and soft and fluffy textures. Via SF Girl By Bay.

3. Embrace Layering

Want a room that looks like a paint-by-number kit? Then don't just place everything into a room by itself. Layer elements on top of each other. Shove plants in front of things. Add stacks of books to benches. The point is to connect everything with everything else so you create cohesion in your rooms. Seen on The Everyday Girl.

4. Just Enough Stuff

Minimalism is great, and look — this might be a slightly controversial suggestion — but many rooms that stand out tend to have more than just a handful of items in them. Not stuffed to the gills, but they have enough stuff. That kind of arrangement of elements creates little stories all throughout a room, giving the eye something to soak up. Found on Pop Sugar.

5. Casually Perfect Imperfection

Art not lining up perfectly. A book a little off-center. A chair not pushed in all the way. A forgotten frame leaned up again the floor behind a mirror. These things that seem imperfect actually make perfect sense in a room that you want to feel comfortable and cozy and not like a stuffy museum or catalog spread. Aim for an air of casual imperfection in your rooms — things aren't a mess but they don't look as neat as if your in-laws were on their way. Seen on Lovely Life.

6. Inviting Arrangements

Want rooms that pull you into them? Use elements to catch attention, guide the way and beckon. Use decorative accessories or furniture pieces to quite literally establish the sort of traffic patterns that flow occupants into seating arrangements, deposited in front of a vignette and through each room to another. Seen on Escapade.

7. A Touch of Personal Quirk

Want a room that really stands out? Channel your inner weirdness to connect with whatever it is that you like that makes you unique. A sci-fi nut? Really love old phonographs? You've got to connect with the sort of elements that scream "you" and then find a way to add it into a space, even if it feels weird. This is the essential element of quirk and it's the sort of stylish secret that will take your rooms over the top.